The Captive Queen of Scots

by Jean Plaidy

  English manners, although less courteous than the French, were nevertheless gracious when compared with those she had experienced in Scotland. All those who were in truth her jailors seemed determined to show her that they were not, wishing her to believe that they guarded her solely for her own protection and not to prevent her escaping to Scotland or receiving enemies of their own Queen.

  Sir George Bowes, who had arrived at Carlisle in order to escort her to Bolton, accompanied by a hundred armed horsemen, expressed the greatest sympathy for her and, when he saw how inadequate was the furniture in her apartments, he immediately sent to his own house for bedding and hangings that they might be set up in Bolton for the Queen’s use. Never once did he imply that he was guarding her for the Queen of England and her ministers; and Mary, whose great misfortune was her too trusting nature, could easily forget that she must be continually on her guard against her jailors.

  It was a different matter with Lady Scrope. She was pregnant and, liking to rest often, she would sit with the Queen in her apartments overlooking those glorious hills and dales, and they would talk together; and Margaret Scrope would always seek to lead the conversation to her brother, the Duke of Norfolk.

  “He mentions you constantly when we meet or in his letters,” she told Mary. “He is so anxious that you should be well treated and delighted that you have now come to Bolton.”

  “How pleasant it is to know that I have friends in England,” answered Mary.

  Margaret would bring out the tapestry which Mary loved to work, and as their fingers were busy, so were their tongues.

  “Thomas believes that you should not put too much trust in Secretary Cecil,” Margaret told Mary.

  “I am sure he is right.”

  “The Queen is apt to be guided by her ministers, particularly Cecil and Leicester. She is very vain and imagines that they are all in love with her. It is Your Majesty’s reputation as a beauty that makes her so interested in you.”

  Mary told of the tattered garments Elizabeth had sent her. “Master Knollys said they were for my maids, but I do believe she meant them for me.”

  Margaret looked over her shoulder. “She, in her rich satins and velvets ablaze with jewels listening to the flattery of the courtiers, likes to believe herself the most beautiful woman in the world! She knows this is not so and wants to make sure you do not have the advantage of wearing becoming garments.”

  “Is she indeed so petty?”

  Margaret, plying her needle, nodded; and Mary remembered that Elizabeth was royal and that it was not becoming in one Queen to tattle of another so she changed the subject to Margaret’s brother. Would he be coming to Bolton?

  “Who can say? I’ll dare swear the Queen will not wish him to, while you are here. I believe he must have spoken admiringly of you.” Margaret laughed and rethreaded her needle. “Thomas is a handsome man,” she went on with sisterly affection. “It is a pity that he is a widower, for he was such a good husband to his three wives. How sad that death should have claimed them all and so soon!”

  Margaret Scrope did not look at the Queen. She was thinking: Thomas married three heiresses; why should there not be a fourth? This heiress was a most romantic one. He would have to fight to reinstate her and that might mean rebellion, but Thomas had already quarreled with Leicester and was resentful of those men with whom Elizabeth surrounded herself and on whom she conferred favors. Nor could Elizabeth afford to ignore him, because he was the premier peer and one of the richest men in England. Cecil did not like him, nor he Cecil. As for Mary, she was not only Queen of Scotland but, if Elizabeth should not marry and have an heir, Mary was next in succession to the throne of England.

  Margaret felt dizzy with ambitions on behalf of her brother and she regarded it as great good fortune that the Queen of Scotland had come to Bolton.

  Mary was thoughtful. He had married three times, and so had she. But how different his marriages must have been from hers! If Lady Scrope could be believed her brother’s matrimonial life had been one of continual bliss. Mary felt a little envious as she listened to Margaret Scrope’s eulogies of her brother, and because she looked a little wistful Margaret said: “Your Majesty, one day you will marry again. You will regain your throne, and then you will live in serenity.”

  “Sometimes I think that the serene life is not for me.”

  “It would be,” Margaret assured her, “if you married the man who could give you it.”

  The seed was sown. Mary’s interest in Thomas Howard was growing, and when they sat together, or walked about the castle, Margaret Scrope talked so often of her brother that Mary felt she knew him, and was growing fond of him.

  She missed George Douglas. The passionate days and nights spent with Bothwell were so far away that they seemed like dreams.

  She was a woman who needed love.

  NEWS WAS SMUGGLED to her from France. It was easier now to receive such letters, for she had a strong ally in the castle—the mistress of the house herself.

  George Douglas wrote that he had not been negligent in her service. He had been received by the Cardinal of Lorraine and the King of France, who assured her of their love. He had raised a thousand men who were armed and in training, waiting for the day when she should send for them.

  Mary kissed the letter. “Dear George,” she murmured, “but I sent you to France to make your fortune, to marry your heiress and live happily there!”

  There was also news from Scotland. Huntley and Argyle had ten thousand men assembled, waiting for orders to make an attack on Moray. Fleming was working zealously on her behalf. The Hamiltons were gathering in strength.

  Moray must sleep very uneasily these nights.

  Hope was high in Bolton Castle during those lovely summer days, and Mary’s health and spirits were at their peak. She was gracious and friendly to familiarity with all who served her. Her guards were susceptible to her charm, and Bolton Castle during those weeks could not have been less like a prison.

  Then to crown her pleasure Lord Herries arrived back from London.

  Mary embraced him when he came to her apartments. He was decidedly pleased and she guessed that he brought good news.

  “You have seen the Queen?” she asked eagerly.

  “Yes, Your Majesty, and talked long with her.”

  “And what news do you bring?”

  “That if Your Majesty will commit your cause to be heard by her order, not as your judge, but as your dear cousin and friend, and to commit yourself to her advice and counsel, she will see that you are once more set upon your regal seat.”

  Mary clasped her hands with pleasure.

  “It seems that she is aware of our relationship, and is indeed my friend. What plans does she set forth in this matter?”

  “She will send for certain of your enemies and, before noblemen of England—who shall be chosen with your approval—they shall explain why they have deposed you. If they can give some reason for this, she will reinstate you, but there will be a condition that they are not deprived of their estates. If on the other hand they should not be able to give a reason, she promises to restore you by force of arms if they should resist.”

  “But this is the best news I have heard since I left Scotland.”

  “There is one other condition. If she helps you to regain the throne of Scotland, you must renounce any claim to the throne of England during her lifetime or that of any issue she may have.”

  “I never wished to claim the throne of England,” said Mary. “It is true the title ‘Queen of England’ was bestowed on me in France, but that was not my wish.”

  “There is something else. You must break your league with France and enter into league with England; you must abandon the Mass in Scotland and receive the Common Prayer after the manner of England.”

  Mary was silent. “I am not anxious to interfere with the religion of my people.”

  Herries said: “It seems that at last the Queen of England is ready to help you. It would be possible
to receive the Common Prayer and allow those who wished to celebrate Mass privately to do so.”

  Mary still hesitated.

  “She could put Your Majesty on your throne more easily than any other. She could doubtless do it without bloodshed. Moray would never dare stand against the English. The French have to come from overseas and it is not easy to make a landing in a foreign country. But the English are on our Border. Moray would never dare risk a war with England and a civil war at the same time. He would be crushed between two strong forces and could do nothing to help himself.”

  “I have always believed in negotiation around the council table rather than battle. But . . . George Douglas is raising men for me in France. He already has a force of a thousand armed men in training. That is but a beginning, I am assured. And you say the Queen of England declares that I must not accept help from France.”

  Herries assured her that this was so. He had been deceived by the Queen of England who was one of the wiliest rulers of her day. She had made it her business to know a great deal about Herries. He was one of the most loyal of Mary’s adherents. Elizabeth knew that, because Leicester had sought to win him to Moray’s cause, while he was in London, with promises of great honors to come, and Herries had not even treated Leicester’s overtures seriously. A sentimental man, thought the Queen of England; she admired him for his loyalty and wished that he were a subject of hers. At the same time she knew how best to deal with such a man. So, when he had been brought to her, he had met a woman, completely feminine, deeply sympathetic to her dear cousin of Scotland, a little emotional and anxious to do what was right. She fervently hoped, she had told him, that the Queen of Scotland’s innocence would be established; she wished more than anything to receive her dear sister and cousin, to comfort her, to talk with her in private. But her ministers were in some way her masters. They were jealous of her reputation. They insisted that Mary’s innocence must be proved before she was received by their Queen.

  Herries was as completely duped as she had intended him to be, so now he told Mary: “The Queen of England sincerely hopes to prove your innocence. She has assured me that she is on your side.”

  “Yet,” said Mary, “I am a Queen even as she is, and it is not for her to sit in judgment over me.”

  “She does not wish to. She only wishes to show her ministers that these evil rumors which have been circulating about you are without foundation.”

  “Tell me how you were received by her. I would hear everything.”

  So Herries told of how he had waited for an audience—waited and waited—and later realized that it was her ministers who had made it impossible for him to see her. But when he did so, she had convinced him of her love for the Queen of Scots. “She is my kinswoman, my lord,” she had said. “And do you think that I, a Queen, wish to see another Queen treated so disrespectfully by her subjects? Nay, I wish to restore to her all that he has lost; and I swear that once her innocence is proved, no matter what any man say, she will find me her firm friend.”

  Mary smiled. She was picturing that meeting. Her cousin whom she had never seen, but who she knew was red haired, occasionally arrogant, sometimes gay, at times frivolous, loving to dance and be flattered, holding her little court of favorites to whom she liked to give the impression that they could become her lovers, seemed a very human person.

  Mary endowed Elizabeth with the more pleasing characteristics which were her own—generosity, impetuosity, eagerness to help those in distress.

  Thus she made one of the most ruinous mistakes of her life when she said: “I will write to George and tell him to disband his men; I will tell Argyle, Huntley and Fleming the same. I will put my trust in Elizabeth and do as she suggests.”

  NO SOONER HAD MARY agreed to fall in with Elizabeth’s wishes than misgivings beset her.

  She heard of George Douglas’s bitter disappointment whet he was forced to disperse his little army. Argyle, Huntley and Fleming were shocked beyond expression, but there was nothing they could do since the Queen ordered them to disband their forces. In the decision of a moment Mary had destroyed all that her friends had been carefully building up since the defeat at Langside. She was no match for her wily enemies.

  She had written to Elizabeth telling her that as she had given her consent to the plan, she believed she should have Elizabeth’s own agreement in writing. She was sure the Queen would instruct Secretary Cecil to write to her confirming the offer which Herries had delivered orally.

  Each day she waited for the Queen’s reply; but none came; yet she heard that Moray and Morton were preparing the case against her, and that it was accepted that she had agreed to have her case tried in England.

  Sometimes she cried out in anger: “Who are these people to judge me? I will answer to one judge only and that judge is God, before whom I shall not be afraid to stand and declare my innocence.”

  But it was too late to protest. Copies of the casket letters had already been translated, and Moray and Morton, in collusion with Cecil and his friends, were building the case against her.

  Her friends in Scotland deplored this state of affairs. There was a little brightness in the immediate future however. Although she never went out unless accompanied by guards, and although the castle gates were carefully locked at night, Scotsmen were still allowed to come and go; and this meant that news could be brought to her from the world outside Bolton Castle.

  While Herries walked with Mary in the grounds one day he said: “I think we have been too trusting.”

  Mary nodded. “No word from Elizabeth. Do you think her ministers are preventing her from putting in writing what she told you?”

  Herries was thoughtful. It was difficult to imagine the woman he had seen, taking orders from her ministers. She had appeared to him in the role of compassionate friend of his mistress, but he could not forget the demeanor of her courtiers, the docile manner in which they—and her foremost ministers—never failed to speak to her, as though she were a goddess. Could such a woman be waiting on the word of ministers who were so clearly preoccupied in discovering new ways of flattering her and winning her approval? Herries had begun to wonder whether he had been duped by the English Queen.

  In any case while Mary was in England she was to a great extent at the mercy of Elizabeth; and knowing that ten thousand Scotsmen had rallied to Huntley’s banner, and that Frenchmen had been ready to come to her defense, he had been considering that if Mary were in Scotland she might have a better chance of bargaining with Elizabeth.

  That was why he was thoughtful now. A scheme had been put before him. It was simple as he believed all good schemes should be. What could have been more simple than the escape from Lochleven? It could work.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “I and others of your friends begin to think that we could more likely win Elizabeth’s help if you were not her prisoner. And let us face it—although she calls you her guest, you are in fact her prisoner.”

  “You mean, if I were back in Scotland it would be easier to bargain with her.”

  “I believe that to be so now, Your Majesty.”

  “What would happen if I told Knollys and Scrope that I intended to return?”

  “Your Majesty would be very politely and courteously prevented from doing so. That in itself should make us realize how necessary it is for you to return.”

  “I see that you are as disturbed as I am because the Queen of England has not put her offer to me in writing, and has announced my willingness to have my case judged in England, without making it known what concessions she promised if I should do so. Oh yes, my dear Lord Herries, you are right, as you so often have been in all this wearisome business.”

  “I fear I put too much trust in the Queen of England.”

  Mary laid her hand on his arm. She understood how he had done that; she herself had been failing all along by putting her trust in those of whom he should have been wary. It was not in her nature to reprove others for faults which she herself possessed in gre
ater measure. Nor would she have blamed any who made mistakes, if their intentions were good.

  “So Your Majesty will perhaps listen to a plan for your escape,” went on Herries quietly.

  “With pleasure,” she answered.

  “Your servant, the Laird of Fernyhirst, has suggested that if you could cross the Border his castle would be at your disposal. Everything is being prepared to receive you there . . . providing you could leave Bolton Castle.”

  Mary’s eyes began to sparkle. The thought of action after so much inactivity was inviting. Moreover she was weary of having to make continual requests to the Queen of England, who either ignored them or made promises which it seemed she was reluctant to keep. That box of worn-out shoes and rusty black velvet was not easily forgotten.

  “How could I leave Bolton Castle?”

  “Only after dark.”

  “But there are guards at the doors.”

  “The only way to escape would be through one of the windows of your apartments. If you could slip through the coppices, and down the hill, we could arrange for horses to be waiting there; and then . . . we are not so many miles from the Border.”

  “Then let it be done,” cried Mary impulsively.

  “There must be few in the secret, and few to go with you. Perhaps Mary Seton . . . Willie Douglas . . . myself . . . For a number of us to leave might mean our betrayal. Others could follow you once you were safely away. I am sure there would be no wish to detain them after you had gone.”

  “Then let us decide how it shall be done.”

  “First we will stroll around the castle to that window of your apartments which looks down on the grounds.”

  They did this and, without appearing to pay much attention, carefully noticed the distance from window to grass below.

  “You see,” said Herries, “it would be possible, once you reached the ground, to slip out through the coppices and if the horses were in readiness at the bottom of the hill you would be away in a matter of five or ten minutes.”